David Amberg | Together/Apart / 2022

a life in pieces

by Douglas Messerli

 

David Amberg (screenwriter and director) Together/Apart / 2022 [7 minutes]

 

In David Amberg’s animated short film, two young men Michael and Alex (Alex Redd and Eric Roberts) meet up at a party and afterword's make out in a nearby empty lot. There, despite Alex’s

fears, Michael encourages they continue with their kissing. Thugs, at that very moment, appear with a bat, resulting in a gay bashing in which Michael is terribly hurt.

    Two years pass, and the couple is still together, but Michael is still having serious issues, nightmares and a sense of not being fully whole and ready to engage in public expressions with Alex of love. This particularly morning, in fact, one of his eyes escapes, Michael trying to cover up the problem quickly with an eyepatch, despite the little eye bulb’s appearance at the breakfast table.

    It is their second anniversary, and Alex brings up the possibility that after two years they might be thinking of getting married. That sudden possibility truly puts Michael into a spin, as he admits he is still terrified of openly expressing their relationship. At that moment his heart falls out and goes running across the room to join the eyeball. Rushing to a doctor, they are told to simply ice on it, as he leads his heart out the door on a leash. Things are definitely not going very well for their anniversary.

 

    His hand, in fact, soon follows the other two as they escape, Michael insisting, in a ridiculous pun, that he can handle it as he goes chasing after the missing body parts. One can only wonder what such important body parts, the eye, the hand, and the heart, are seeking. Following them down a narrow alley, he meets up once again with the shadow of a homophobic gay basher upon which all his body falls into pieces, obviously a metaphor for the survivor’s mental condition.

      Alex soon appears on the scene, expressing his deep love, while Michael explains about his fears that he never wants his lover to have to go through again. But love does heal all in Amberg’s crazy animated reality. Alex screws back Michael’s head onto his body, and the other pieces gradually come back to reassemble of their own accord. Alex picks up the heart and puts in back into the empty space.

      The last scene shows the two of their marrying and kissing in a open space.

    Amberg’s humorous rendering of the psychological problems involved after a homophobic gay attack make clear that recovering from such an event is not an easy thing, leaving the human psyche as Michael declares, in a mess; to which Alex, always the optimist replies, “You’re not a mess, you’re just…portable.”

 

Los Angeles, December 19, 2023

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (December 2023).